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A Provincetown Legend Lives Again!

By Josephine C. Del Deo

The Rose Dorothea first met the Atlantic when she slipped down the ways of the Tarr & James Yard at Essex, Massachusetts in 1905. And until the day she was sunk by German submarines in 1917, the fate of many schooner converted cargo carriers during World War 1, the Rose Dorothea had an eventful, even illustrious career. Although she now rests in the briney depths, her history and her world are being brought back to life in the Provincetown Heritage Museum on Cape Cod.

The rebuilding of this Provincetown legend has become one of the most important tasks at the Provincetown Heritage Museum. Each day a skipper and a boat builder bring a little more of the Rose Dorothea's world to light.

Francis "Flyer" Santos began in August, 1977, to lay the keel of the half scale model of the Rose Dorothea on the second floor of a building that once supported. the pews of Provincetown skippers who sailed to sea in the last forty years of the 19th century. The Provincetown Heritage Museum, built in 1860 as the Center Methodist Episcopal Church, was purchased by the town of Provincetown in 1976 to save the church building and to preserve a substantial legacy of Provincetown's history ‑fishing, art, the Victorian era and the natural environmental aspects of this unusual outer Cape location.

If you talk to Captain Santos on any working day in the summer or early fall when the museum is in daily operation, he will open your eyes and ears to the subjects he so dearly loves: boats, fishing and, most‑ particularly, the Rose Dorothea. Her designer was the famed Tom McManus who, at the turn of the century, was responsible for the design of over ninety percent of the fishing fleet then in operation on the eastern seaboard. The Rose Dorothea was one of his Indianhead schooners, so called because the first vessels of that particular design were named by McManus from Indian lore. The "Indianheader" was a distinct improvement over the clipper bow schooner because of the handy ability of its spoon, or rounded, bow to head up into the wind or fall off with ease, thus making fishing a safer operation for the dorymen who were often vulnerable to a mother ship bearing down on them with too much speed and not enough maneuverability.

            The "Rose" was not only a seaworthy fishing schooner, but a fist, sailing ship as well, and, In 1907, Captain Marion Perry of Provincetown prepared her for the Fisherman's Race off Boston Light with great confidence that she would win the coveted Lipton Cup. Close by, another Indianhead schooner from Provincetown, the Jessie Costa. was also being rigged for conquest, but; as it turned out, Captain Perry's "Rose" was to prevail to the last. The vessels competing in this race, which was one of the special events of Boston's Old Home Week celebration that year, were some of the fastest fishing vessels in the New England fleet, and the prize of the silver cup was the largest trophy ever offered by Sir Thomas Lipton.

What is now an oft‑told local legend about the Rose Dorothea was then a ‑dramatic event. Rounding Eastern Point, her foretopmast broke, and it appeared she would lose her close advantage over her nearest rival, the Jessie Costa. But the crew, with fleet skill, cleared the damage and hauled in the jib topsail and the foretopsail, and, still keeping to the weather of the Costa, the "Rose" managed to maintain her slim lead. On the last hitch, the Rose Dorothea sailed across the finish line, the winner of the world's largest sailing trophy.

Sir Thomas Lipton's Cup was to be perpetual challenge trophy for fishermen, but no following race was ever sailed, and the beautiful trophy still remains in Provincetown where it is a shining testimony to the great days of Provincetown's men of the sea and their prowess as sailors and fishermen.

In a year's time, Captain Santos has fashioned the reborn Rose Dorothea's ribs and planking to create a hull that nudges huge but friendly against the confinements of an indoor world. She has been dealt with as if water lapped

along the keel, but the keel itself and the hull below the waterline have been constructed to accommodate wood, not waves. When the model is completed, visitors will see the boat riding at anchor against a simulated dock and waterfront environment.

"Flyer" Santos, together with a few young men working under his supervision, implemented the shared vision of the museum's board of trustees, but the practical problems of construction might have stopped a less dauntless boat builder long before the dream got underway. Envisioning an accurate model to size and scale without existing plans could have presented an insurmountable challenge to an amateur, either in craft or spirit. But thanks to the cooperation of William Baker, well‑known nautical architect and engineer from M.I.T., who drew up Plans for the Rose Dorothea 11 and to the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut which provided plans of a similar fishing vessel, it was possible to establish working off‑set tables. Money, that ultimate necessity, was raised by private contributions donated through the Provincetown Historical Association, a private, non‑profit organization whose dedicated energies continue to fund the Rose Dorothea project.

So, on a blistering hot day in mid‑August, 1977, "Flyer" and Dick Alberts, head of the marine boatbuilding department of the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, went to work to fashion a firm, tangible start from the enigma of figures on paper. In the end, the rigging will rise to the very top of the museum's gable, and her sails will be bent to a boom and bowsprit that touch each end of the huge building.

What the world may not know about Provincetown will be told by t he " Rose" very loud and clear: Provincetown was the first great fishing port on the eastern coast dating back to the time of the Norsemen; she had a star‑studded cast of vessels plying the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans throughout America's fishing history; her skippers were famous in every port, their sailing ability unrivalled anywhere; her harbor once held 200 fishing scooners riding at anchor in a single day. She is said to be, by some authorities, the home of the whaling and lobster fisheries, and today she is still the unquestioned "best" of the fresh fishing ports. Together with her natural beauty and the fact that Provincetown is the first landing place of the Pilgrims, this should make the casual visitor sit up and take notice.

In the next year or two, the Rose Dorothea will be telling her own story day by day in the Provincetown Heritage Museum. It will be a noisy legend as the hammers and saws blend in succeeding chapters of construction. Those who have an opportunity to "read" this book in progress, however, will be privileged to experience a most unusual epic in the making, and when the famous Rose Dorothea finaliy sails again, she will never heel to any but a favoring wind.